Big Red has always been renowned for its awe-inspiring commercials, but this latest spot for the DROID Charge takes things to a whole new level. Trapdoors, monolithic Microsoft Surface-style touchscreens, mind-boggling explosions - you name it, Verizon's included it. I won't spoil the fun for you, though; go ahead and watch the ad for yourself:

Gizmodo recently sat down with Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney for a talk about gaming, mobile platforms, and the Sony NGP. Naturally, one of the topics at hand was Android, and, more specifically, why there are no Epic titles for the platform.

Epic Games has been producing iOS games for some time using the Unreal Engine, which provides detailed graphics and better gameplay. However, as Android users, we have never had the opportunity to see these types of games on our devices, and there seems to be good reason for that.

Earlier today, Android Central caught word that the Epic and Zio would receive an over-the-air (OTA) update to Froyo on February 21, but had nothing more than copied and pasted text from the Sprint system. Fast forward a few hours, and we now have more concrete evidence in the form a screenshots from Sprint's internal system that confirm the update is coming:

A few weeks ago, Samsung USA tweeted that Froyo updates for the Galaxy S phones are being delayed due to further testing. Then, just 4 days ago, AndroidSPIN reported that the Vibrant update (if not others) wasn't rolling out so that the Vibrant wouldn't steal the Vibrant 4G+'s thunder. And now the saga continues, as a new anonymous source has stepped forth to clarify the issue.

Last night, XDA user Firon posted a flashable, pre-rooted, deodexed, and zip-aligned version of the Froyo leak for the Samsung Epic 4G. This is good news because the Galaxy S phones are hurting for some Froyo love, and Samsung seems to be taking its sweet time with it.

Here’s something to get your teeth into. Over atLaptopMag, a whole host of Androids have been put through their paces in a grueling battery life endurance test. The goal was to keep the phones’ screens on while doing a moderate amount of processing, namely cyclically browsing a collection of web pages. Despite the supposed power savings afforded by AMOLED screens, the phones employing that screen technology fell quite a ways behind in comparison to the traditional LCD phones.

I'm not sure how much money Sprint spent on this but I'm sure whatever the amount was, they overpaid. In an effort to promote the recently launched Samsung Epic 4G handset and the new Media Hub, the company shot a series of short movies, all with the word "Epic" in the titles.

The website layout, production quality, and presentation are all top notch. What is not top notch, however, is the most important part - the content.

Yesterday, Samsung released a fairly minor update for the Epic 4G. There are only a handful of changes, including some light optimizations and a few small bug fixes - but more importantly, it adds Media Hub functionality. Media Hub is a new service that was introduced last night by Samsung, and provides access to movies and TV shows from most of the big dogs - not too shabby.

Full list of changes:

DI07 Update Details

Please see the list below for details of some changes found in the DI07 update.

That was quick - the Sprint's Epic 4G has already been rooted by the crew over at SDX-devs. In other words, now you can root that phone you don't have yet. It's a method requiring adb (Android Device Bridge) commands and thus desktop connectivity, but a one-click solution will probably emerge sooner rather than later. Note: it says EVO root, but the method works on this phone as well, don't let the filename fool you.

When offered to preview Sprint’s Samsung Galaxy S offering, the SPH-D700, also known as the Epic 4G, I immediately jumped on the opportunity. While my first personal-use Android device was the Nexus One, I’ve handled my share of Android smartphones, and my history of smartphone use has included several Samsung phones over the years. This being the first Galaxy S device I’ve personally handled, I’m glad to say that Samsung does not disappoint, and I can highly recommend the device to users who need a physical keyboard and can sign up for a contract with Sprint.